Growing Right Before My Eyes

I think both of my little munchkins have recently gone through a mental spurt. They both have seemed older to me this last week. It's both fun and a little sad to see them grow.

Aubrey has just been a little dress-up girl this week. Here's a little ensemble she put together. (I think she was hoping that we would actually leave the house. We were all sick, so we didn't leave the house most of the week.)

 She was Minnie Mouse all day on Saturday. I love how her ears are on upside down.

We have morning church now and I no longer have much time to do Aubrey's hair. I wanted her to have curls for church. She does not sleep well with sponge rollers or tied in socks. So, I tried my own little method to see how it would work.

The experiment. We called them twirly knots - Aubrey got a kick out of them and was very excited Sunday morning to see if they would turn into curls.

 

The result. I thought it turned out pretty cute - however they were not real easy to pick out. They kind of knotted a bit on the ends.

 

I tried to get a front shot, but Aubrey was too busy dancing!

With Aubrey in our home it's kind of like living in a musical. She makes up songs about whatever she is doing. Sometimes she sings them soft and sweet and sometimes at the top of her lungs. These are a few of the songs she graced us with at dinner last night:
"I love to look at my family. When I look at each one, I love them."
"In the Spring flowers grow. In the Summer strawberries grow. In the Winter nothing grows."
"Gotta get ready for bed, but I want to play instead" Repeated several times.
"I will eat right now instead of going to bed early." (She's been threatened with that a few times this week because she was taking an eternity to eat her dinner.)

It's fun hearing her sweet voice singing away all day long! (My mom said that I was like that as a kid too.)

Aubrey also loves to rhyme. She speaks in rhymes all of the time. Maybe she'll become a songwriter.

A favorite saying of Aubrey these days is, "I've got a new way of ______" She comes up with new ways to walk and talk and brush her teeth, etc. And of course she has to show us all of her "new ways" and teach Brookie her new ways of doing things!

Another favorite saying of Aubrey's is, "it will take all night to do _____" (or sometimes all day). At dinner she was told she had to eat her vegetables before she had another piece of bread. Her retort was, "but it will take all night to eat my vegetables." Funny kid.

I have been impressed with Aubrey's math ability lately. At dinner she'll ask, how many bites of vegetables do I need to eat (gotta love that question). Then she'll take a few bites and say something like, "I ate 2 bites so I have 3 more left and I will have eaten all 5 bites."

Brooke and I had fun making the cooties on Saturday. She would hand me each piece and tell me what color or what body part it was and tell me where to put it. She tried to put some pieces in herself, but it was a little too hard for her. (Don't you love her too small pj's that she insisted on wearing. And the fact that they are part way open and that it was past noon and she was still wearing them!)

Brooke is still just a talking machine. She is talking in sentences all day now. (Mostly 3, 4 and 5 word sentences.) Her favorite sentence is "I do self." (Translation I want to do it myself.) She also stopped saying "yeah" and now says, "yesssssssss" and "ok".

Whenever we say family prayer she leans over the ottoman and whispers her own prayer the whole time and then when it's done she yells, "Amen" excitedly. I wish I could hear what she is saying, but it's a quiet whisper.

Brooke is loving stories lately. She even reads them to herself. She either talks about the pictures or recites phrases that she remembers. When she gets to the end she closes the book and says, "the end". Then she'll say, "another story" and run off and get a new book.

The other day Brooke was sitting on my lap. Aubrey came over and was trying to get on my lap also. Brooke looks at her all disturbed and says, "No, I cuddlebug." Apparently she didn't want to share the mommy cuddles.

Whenever we smell a stinky we'll ask Brooke if she has a poopy diaper. Sometimes she'll fess up, but most of the time she'll say, "no I tootie." Sometimes she's telling the truth, but other times she is lying through her teeth!

She has now figured out the #3. For awhile she would point out when she would see 2 of anything. The other day we were reading a book that had 3 bears on one page. First she said, "2 bears". I responded with, "Are there 2 bears on the page?" Then she said, "No three."

Brooke is a real good helper and usually likes to help clean up. Whenever she is finished with a snack or a cup of milk she will say, "put in sink" and then run to the sink and throw it in. She also likes to throw things in the trash, although she sometimes mistakes the toilet for the trash.

I love those two little cutie pies!